Last year's launch of AMD's FX processors was honestly disappointing. The Bulldozer CPU cores that were bundled into each Zambezi chip were hardly power efficient and in many areas couldn't significantly outperform AMD's previous generation platform. Look beyond the direct AMD comparison and the situation looked even worse. In our conclusion to last year's FX-8150 review I wrote the following:

"Single threaded performance is my biggest concern, and compared to Sandy Bridge there's a good 40-50% advantage the i5 2500K enjoys over the FX-8150. My hope is that future derivatives of the FX processor (perhaps based on Piledriver) will boast much more aggressive Turbo Core frequencies, which would do wonders at eating into that advantage."

The performance advantage that Intel enjoyed at the time was beyond what could be erased by a single generation. To make matters worse, before AMD could rev Bulldozer, Intel already began shipping Ivy Bridge - a part that not only increased performance but decreased power consumption as well. It's been a rough road for AMD over these past few years, but you have to give credit where it's due: we haven't seen AMD executing this consistently in quite a while. As promised we've now had multiple generations of each platform ship from AMD. Brazos had a mild update, Llano paved the way for Trinity which is now shipping, and around a year after Zambezi's launch we have Vishera: the Piledriver based AMD FX successor.

At a high level, Vishera swaps out the Bulldozer cores from Zambezi and replaces them with Piledriver. This is the same CPU core that is used in Trinity, but it's optimized for a very different purpose here in Vishera. While Trinity had to worry about working nicely in a laptop, Vishera is strictly a high-end desktop/workstation part. There's no on-die graphics for starters. Clock speeds and TDPs are also up compared to Trinity.

CPU Specification Comparison

CPU

Manufacturing Process

Cores

Transistor Count

Die Size

AMD Vishera 8C

32nm

8

1.2B

315mm2

AMD Zambezi 8C

32nm

8

1.2B

315mm2

Intel Ivy Bridge 4C

22nm

4

1.4B

160mm2

Intel Sandy Bridge E (6C)

32nm

6

2.27B

435mm2

Intel Sandy Bridge E (4C)

32nm

4

1.27B

294mm2

Intel Sandy Bridge 4C

32nm

4

1.16B

216mm2

Intel Lynnfield 4C

45nm

4

774M

296mm2

Intel Sandy Bridge 2C (GT1)

32nm

2

504M

131mm2

Intel Sandy Bridge 2C (GT2)

32nm

2

624M

149mm2

Vishera is still built on the same 32nm GlobalFoundries SOI process as Zambezi, which means there isn't much room for additional architectural complexity without ballooning die area, and not a whole lot of hope for significantly decreasing power consumption. As a fabless semiconductor manufacturer, AMD is now at GF's mercy when it comes to moving process technology forward. It simply has to make 32nm work for now. Piledriver is a light evolution over Bulldozer, so there's actually no substantial increase in die area compared to the previous generation. Cache sizes remain the same as well, which keeps everything roughly the same. These chips are obviously much larger than Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge parts, but Intel has a full node advantage there which enables that.

The table above says it all. TDPs haven't changed, cache sizes haven't changed and neither have core counts. Across the board Vishera ships at higher base frequencies than the equivalent Zambezi part, but without increasing max turbo frequency (in the case of the 8-core parts). The 6 and 4 core versions get boosts to both sides, without increasing TDP. In our Trinity notebook review I called the new CPU core Bulldozed Tuned. The table above supports that characterization.

It's also important to note that AMD's pricing this time around is far more sensible. While the FX-8150 debuted at $245, the 8350 drops that price to $199 putting it around $40 less than the Core i5 3570K. The chart below shows where AMD expects all of these CPUs to do battle:

AMD's targets are similar to what they were last time: Intel's Core i5 and below. All of the FX processors remain unlocked and ship fully featured with hardware AES acceleration enabled. Most Socket-AM3+ motherboards on the market today should support the new parts with nothing more than a BIOS update. In fact, I used the same ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard I used last year (with a much newer BIOS) for today's review:

The Test

For more comparisons be sure to check out our performance database: Bench.

Post Your Comment

249 Comments

You know, you look at this crap amd chip in the review, and then it hits you... hard

You can lock sandy b 2500K at 4,500.00 mhz all day long on every motherboard out there, all 4 cores, with no voltage increase, w the crap stock intel fan for years on end, never a hiccup, and smoke the every living daylights out of everything amd has.

I mean, I find it very interesting that with videocards we STILL hear about overclocking, but when it comes to cpu's, suddenly all the OC fanboys of amd fall dead freaking silent on the matter.

Sorry, just cannot help noticing when the wannabe emperor is stark naked and moments ago his glorious worshippers were pointing and admiring and swooning over just how fast the amd jaybird can run when pushed, and then.... suddenly, the MASTER OC CHIP OF ALL TIME, the Sandy Bridge... is rather ignored... and the naked jaybird streaking thing becomes the dejected peasants silence...

You make demonstrably false statements on every single AMD article and merely provide further proof of your ignorance. Honestly, if you're unable to find anything better to do than post idiotic comments on every anadtech article, I have a suggestion: EDUCATE YOURSELF, LITTLE DIPSHIT. Reply

Dude, seriously? Did you know the current world record for overclocking is held on an AMD processor? AMD is incredible when overclocking, especially super cooling, yes it may be a bit slower than Intel, but damn you can't beat AMDs price.

think about this..which one is better an eight unlock cores as AMD called it.or 4 cores with hyperthreading technology?

4 cores with hyperthreading it will act like an eight cores because single core will act like two cores as claimed by intel but bear in mind there would be a mathematical complex going on behind intels hyperthreading. but WHAT if you unlock this thing so it would go freely to eight cores as claim by AMD?

THAT IS THE REASON WHY AMD HOLDS THE WORLD RECORD FOR OVERCLOCKING BECAUSE THEY MANAGED TO UNLOCK THIS THING.IF INTEL WILL PRODUCE 8 CORES CPU..THEN AMD WILL MAKE 16 CORES..AND THEN AMD STILL WIL BE THE WINNER FOR WORLD RECORD..

ON THIS POINT OF VIEW JUST BE OPEN MINDED.DO NOT ACT LIKE YOU REALLY SICK WHEN ITS NOT BECAUSE YOU WOULD MAKE YOURSELF LIKE TWICE MORON AND TWICE IDIOT.JUST TAKE AN ADVICE FROM G101. EDUCATE YOURSELF.

I USED TO BE AN INTEL USER.. BUT WHEN I'M BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THIS TREND..I WOULD LOVE AMD AS THEY LOVE CONSUMER'S POCKET (AGAIN- BE OPEN MIND. ITS MY OPINION)Reply

CAPS. The world overclocking record is meaningless. You can't compare clock speed across brands and AMD cores are half-cores. They still can't compete with intel and the circuit size is several years behind, which is why they consume so much power. AMD has given up in the enthusiast CPU market, and is losing money.Reply